Photo diary: week 6, project 365

 Another week of monotony, when one day is hardly different from another. "There has been an airless quality to the last few weeks. "Family time", once a precious fantasy just out of reach, is now a sweaty weighted blanket under which four of us must live. Like potholers we shuffle our bodies from room to room, looking for escape routes - a chink of light, a foreign sound, anything that means we do not have to stare into each other's beloved faces for another year-long minute", writes Eva Wiseman in the latest Observer Magazine. While it's slightly exaggerated for emphasis, I find myself nodding in agreement with her article. 

I love my guys to bits, and would fight to death for them, then why do I crave solitude and just hide in the toilet for an awkwardly longer spell with my iPhone. I also dread the never-ending circle of meals. What to cook for lunch, dinner, what to offer as snacks in-between? 

I fantasise about winning a lottery and living with a Mrs Patmore equivalent who would cook all our meals, with me only occasionally doing forays in the kitchen to bake a cake as a hobby rather than a duty. Though we would need a bigger house too. With a library, where you can get lost. Keep on dreaming, girl! 

While the amount of books we have can compete (-ish) with the Downton Abbey's collection, the rest of the house definitely lacks in comparison. I love our old house, I truly do, but it's so much work.

Last week we tried to walk as much as possible to get some fresh air, which was quite nippy. We didn't get any proper snow last weekend in the end, as promised in the forecast, but the snowflakes were floating in the air. We walked home with masks on, for warmth.

My Mum has been quite unwell in the last week, and I have been ready to hit the wall to relieve the pressure from feeling so helpless - there is nothing, absolutely nothing I can do from such a distance. 

To de-stress, I find baking helps. I baked a batch of peanut butter slices with Reese's Minis. They were not lookers, but tasted lovely and were gone in an instant. The next day my husband asked if there was a slice left for him to take to work in his lunch box, and I had to say, Sorry, it's all gone. I should bake another batch and ration it.

A battered wall by the Church Green is a reminder of the old glory. It would have seen many generations of Witneans walking around in the finery on the way to the church.

We cannot still go through the fields on the way into town, but we walked in that direction to check what the flood situation is. Unless you have wellies up to your amrpits, it's unpassable. What looks like a stream in the photo, is in fact a path towards the bridge.

A shame we cannot walk there, as it's an area where we can find good Pokemons usually, and there's a good Gym too.

Eddie was checking his Whatsapp (he only uses it with the family), when he said, Mum, just look at the date of this missed video call from you, and I laughed and said that I'm a time traveller, who was calling him from the past. No other explanation.

As the RAF base is not far from our town, the aeroplanes tend to fly very low above Witney. 

Yesterday's mail brought a surprise envelope for Eddie, it was the certificate from school, saying that his name was entered in the Golden Book for a mature approach to his home learning, submitting work that is thoughtful and accurate. Please forgive me for showing off my child's achievemnets, but life is so lacklustre in the last few months, that I need a little boost. I'm truly proud of my child, and he totally deserves it. On top of his school work, he has been reading a lot. I'm so happy to have another generation of readers in our family.

As a special treat for the boys I placed an order with Uber Eats. I haven't ordered with them before, and there is not much of a choice in our town, but they have McDonald's. Boys were very happy.

We found Murder on the Orient Express on Amazon (with David Suchet). I've seen it ten years ago when it was shown on TV, and I think Suchet is the best Poirot ever. No comparison to John Malkovich, Kenneth Brannagh or Peter Ustinov. 

We can't travel in real life, but books can take us anywhere. I have a big collection of books set in Cornwall. Beneath the Fear is a psychological thriller, which begins with a murder in Oxford, and then the action moves to Cornwall. It made me think, if we'd be able to travel there later this summer. We have booked "our" cottage almost a year ago, in between lockdowns, when we were hoping that the situation would be better by now. Sash shows me the pictures of Cornwall every day, it's his way of asking if we're going soon. I have no heart to tell him that we might not be able to go at all.

Hope you all are doing OK.

 

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